Antoinetta Marie: A Killer's Beginning
by GronHatchat
Summary: Antoinetta Marie matches my personal interest in crazy women. So here, I will try to do her justice in writing her story, from her meeting of Lucien Lachance, to her initiation as one of the most savage killers of the Dark Brotherhood.
1. Chapter 1

Feeding time. Two words that, often times, the denied shall reap of pleasurable reliefs in the dark. Feeding time should never torment the fed. It should enlighten their senses, and should make them feel secure and taken care of. Even in the dark, feeding time is bliss. Even in the decayed, feeding time is continuation.

Feeding time came early today. Far too early. While prisoners slept in silence within the freezing cells of the Imperial City Prison, one did not. She did not because she could hear them coming. She did not because she knew all too well the meaning of those footsteps. Footsteps like that only came this early within the still dark morning because feeding time did not just apply to the prisoners. They applied to the guards as well.

She squirmed into a fetal position upon her bedrool as the darkness of the chamber became lesser and lesser with the approaching light of fire outside of her smelly, decrepit cell. _Clunk clunk clunk clunk…_ His footsteps were maddening to her. She wanted to claw her way through the stone and run, run, run away forever and ever. She had to! She had to eat the stone and escape before he reached her cell. Desperately, her eyes darted madly to the stone walls surrounding her, wondering where she should bite first….

The fire was getting closer and closer. All outside of her cell burned orange and yellow. The clunking was getting louder. He was almost here. Her tongue scraped the wall. It would not be eaten in time…

"Morning." Such a terrible word, spoken in a terrible voice. Her mind snapped. _No!_ The jingling of keys. "Morning, Antoinetta…" His voice was shaking with suppressed laughter.

"Please," her terrified voice begged as she forced herself all the way against the wall, her heart racing so madly, so terribly. Her toes curled in fright, her fingernails positively digging into her sides. Maybe she could kill herself before he entered…. Maybe she could bash her head against the stone!

"Please what?" The door swung open loudly. A few annoyed voices issued out throughout the hall.

"The hell was that?"

"Who's making that noise, eh?"

"Tryin to sleep…"

"You'll be quiet now, the lot of you, or you'll all be beaten!" the man who stood at her cell door shouted in a monstrous voice. All complaints were silenced at once. The man now turned his attention back to the blonde haired, green eyed creature who shook in terror at his presence, wild-eyed and lips trembling, crying softly. He, Avantus Saemon, looked perfectly well-groomed compared to the woman, compared to Antoinetta Marie. He was filthy, sweaty this late at night and covered with old dirt. A miner and prison guard, he was always covered in soot during his prison shifts, and smelled heavily of old ore. Compared to the terrified, bruised and recently bloodied Marie, he was very well groomed indeed. The dark haired, fat faced beast of a man clanked his way into her cell, his silver and gold armor gleaming threateningly in the firelight of the torch he carried. "Morning," he said to her again, grinning. Black ore stained his teeth.

Her hands were shaking so violently. She wanted to scream. Must scream! But who would come? Who would come and why? Her body felt so frail. Weeks she had been starved…weeks had she been beaten…and weeks had she been raped. All by this man and his friends. Never did it stop. Never was it allowed to stop. They fed her on scraps. They bloodied her when they got bored. They raped her, one by one, when they were angry with their wives, or just wanted some variety… to them, she was a tool, a backup plan, only to be cared for at the bare minimum… Soon, they would murder her. They would get away from it too. The Captains would not care. Chancellor Ocato did not care. And the damnable Uriel Septim, emperor of Hell on Tamriel, did not care. She wished she could kill them all. Wanted to break them and munch on them and make them die, die, die, die, die, die…

And her only crime had been stealing a few apples. _Apples_! A starving woman, condemned to the most horrible punishments imaginable, over two _apples_. Delos Fandas had attacked her the moment he had caught her, the bastardly Dunmer. Attacked her with a lightning bolt to the chest! As she lay on the floor, incapacitated, head spinning, the publican had run out into the streets, yelling for the guards to come. Never had she imagined her steal away into the _Feed Bag_ would end like this…

"Feeding time," Avantus said to her, grinning. All that Marie could register in mental response was that he had come dressed in armor: he did not mean to rape her tonight. Therefore, it would either be a beating…or something worse. Flexing her muscles, closing her eyes, she tensed, ready for it.

"Just kill me this time," she begged weakly. Her voice was oddly strangulated. Indeed, she could not remember the last time she had actually _spoken_. Had it been weeks? What did she have to say these days… and who to?

"Kill you?" Avantus repeated, snorting. "Why? I _like_ you, Antoinetta. I like you a lot. I would never think of killing someone as beautiful as you, now would I? That wouldn't do well for me at all. I can't do that. I _need_ you, Antoinetta. Just saying your name brings me so much joy, can you feel it? Can you hear my heart thumping hard?"

"P-please… kill me…" She did not have the strength to fight him. Did not have the strength to do anything. She would die at any moment. She had felt her body shutting down all week. Breathing alone was a chore, at every second, and it hurt so badly to do so… When he finished with her tonight, she would die. At last, oh at sweet last, she would die.

"Feeding time now lass, be a good girl and stay still…"

"Why do you do this?" she whispered, unable to get any louder. Her throat hurt just to whisper alone.

"Why do I do this?" he breathed back, his eyes mad, a wicked grin on his face. "Because I _enjoy _it. And I can get away with it, lass. But more, it's because I'm_ bored_. Funny, that, isn't it?" He took one step further. "Very funny, aint it?" He took another step. She was screaming inside. She would die. She was going to die. This gutter of a prison would become her tomb. They would dispose of her body, and claim she had broken out. No one would ever know their crimes. No one would ever know or remember Antoinetta Marie. "I aint got much in this city, lass. Aint got a proper wife, no, and aint got a proper son. Damn fool's got his heart set out on being an adventurer, and I'm stuck here, in this dump, having to smell up the rats that infest it. I aint got a life ahead of me. I aint got a purpose. So I'll play with you, Marie. I'll play with you and pull you apart until you're no more, and maybe… maybe my life will have _purpose_, you know!" He let out a boisterous laugh.

"I don't want…no…kill…" She tried to form a sentence. But what sentence? The words came out of her non-sensibly. They meant nothing to her, and scared her, they did. Words like "kill" did not get thrown about lightly. She needed a miracle now. An angel. She needed an angel desperately.

_Please, Mara, have mercy on me_… This she could comprehend inside of her mind. Praying to Mara, the Divine goddess of love, she felt the tiniest slither of peace as she awaited death. Mara, who had stayed with her in a single verse that had gotten her through a dark childhood: _""Come to me, Mara, for without you, I might forget the ways of our fathers, and preening by the light of latest fashion, my words might tremble like the thin reeds of novelty in the tempest of enthusiasms." _She began to say the verse over and over inside her head, praying it desperately, calling out to Mara to come to her, and to save her. _PLEASE SAVE ME! PLEASE SAVE ME! _She craved death…and she feared death. She hated it and wanted it. Must run from it by running to it! This was the state of her mind in this moment, and documented, it perhaps would fester, should it not? To poison a flower field and make it ghastly to walk through, so that the only reminder of the flowers would be the memories of the visitor… while the death of that place remained forever.

"Here, Foyo!" Avantus suddenly called out, clapping his armor lightly. Pitter pattering sounded at once, and she fearfully looked doorward. Around the cell door ran inside a large, dark furred wolf. It was savage in its face, its teeth bared and its eyes leering as it growled at the blonde pray before it. If she could have screamed, she would have. Of course, screaming surely would have been a relief. The pain she felt…screaming may very well make her die. But she could not. She could only make the most pained, guttural sounds as she stared at the wolf, and the wolf stared at her. Saliva flooded from its lips. It looked starved too. She noted the distinct rib cage, and how it _protruded_. It features were set in. Never had she seen anything more ravenous. "Meet Foyo, Marie. I've wanted to introduce you to him for the longest time. But have no fear… he's trained not to attack unless I command him…he will also attack if I myself am attacked. So you see…you, in this moment, are quite safe…" He nudged the wolf in the side.

The beast pounced. Marie had no time to react (nor strength) as the great beast leapt upon her chest and pinned her down. Her head scraped against the stone wall as she slid, and she felt skin removed in sickening pain.

_CURSE YOU, MARA! CURSE YOU! _

Its paws pressed into her chest, and its fangs sunk into her left breast. She could not jerk at all…could not fight. Its teeth were latched in tight and her blood was flowing. Her muscle and tendon had been torn. It was eating and gnawing her alive!

_MARA…DIVINES…CURSE YOU ALL! CURSE YOU ALL! _They were useless. They cared for her not, were false idols… she would die cursing their names…

"Eat her, Foyo! Eat her, boy, that's right!" Avantus was laughing, leaning against the wall, his face frozen in absolute delight. So much so was his joy that he cared little for the world around him, his every manner of attention fixated on his victim. So much so, that he never registered the dark shadow approaching slowly from behind. "Eat her! Kill her! Kill her!"

Marie saw the dark shadow, through all her agony… saw the shadow and the glint of the knife in its hand. That glint became absolute, when it sailed through the air, directly at her. Her mind shattered in its own scream, every sense of body and form collapsing. The knife seemed to sail as if in stasis, captured by an invisible force that she was not allowed to see, but which distorted all around her. _Perception, Marie… Perception! _

The wolf suddenly ceased. Avantus gasped, stepping backwards in shock. Marie's breath was caught. A long, silver blade was sticking into the back of the creature's head. It was no longer focused on mauling her, but instead it was blinking, unbelieving… its mouth opened, letting out a faint note of concern, and then it toppled over, rolling across the floor. It rested against the wall and passed away with that concerned look still on its face, blood dribbling from the knife stuck in its skull.

Avantus opened his mouth, his eyes wide… but then a second blade came out from the darkness behind him. This one crossed Avantus's throat only once. The slice that followed, Marie would never forget. Years down the road, Marie would lay in bed at night, and she would still have wet dreams of Avantus's throat being slit. It was enough to make any woman orgasm.

The blade sliced through Avantus's thyroid gland, and the look on the man's face… it was pure shock, and absolute disbelief. He clutched at deep gash in his throat, feeling with horror the blood that flowered like a waterfall. He slowly…so very slowly… turned to face his murderer.

"You may die now, Mr. Saemon. I bid you good-night." A hand pressed lightly against Avantus's forehead, and the man toppled over, falling against his murdered wolf, dead as the beast. Marie weakly looked up, hardly daring to comprehend or believe the miracle that had just fallen into her cell. A man stood there, at the door, the absolutely bloody knife still in hand. He considered her, staring up at him. He was shrouded in black, his cloak long, his hood drawn over his head, and yet his face peered through. She knew already that he was Imperial. His eyes were black as his robes, and his skin matched this with only the slightest pale hint. There were shadows under those eyes. Shadows of long days and long nights.

Marie knew this man. He was Jenthaeus, the god of power. He was Nubeaous, the Caretaker of Women. He was Attuck, the blade of Stonefire. Or perhaps, he was so much more… in that moment, all of these titles seemed appropriate. He was a savior… he had saved her…

She tried to open her mouth, to speak to the angel… but still she could not. The angel took a step forward, his cloak swinging as if caught in some invisible wind that enveloped him. The firelight of Avantus's fallen torch illuminated his face even more, and to her, his features were terrifying… terrifying, and beautiful. _Angel…_

"You've suffered a terrible fate, haven't you?"

When he spoke to her, Marie knew only comfort. His voice was dark as he was. It was riddled with an aged killer, with a trained bloodletter. Sinister…threatening…and so cold. She longed to hear him speak again. He bent down before her, placing his black gloved hand upon her face.

"Ahraan Govey!" He spoke in a language lost and unknown, something without meaning to her. At least, at first. Meaning to her came when the blue light emitted from her body, and the most powerful sense of peace washed over her. She felt a coolness so powerful, like wind of water, rushing through her veins, through her muscles, and through her very brain. Restoration was imminent. She felt empowered. The pain of her wounds melted away. All manner of tears and shreds dissipated. She breathed out, gasping with new found life. Her hand gripped his arm tightly, all manner of breath and strength returning to her.

"Oh my…Divines… what….!?" She squeezed his arm tightly. "What did you do?"

He considered her. "Saved your life, by the look of it." He did not smile. He did not falter from his dark, concentrated expression. "Enjoy it. I'll leave the cell door open. I figure you have a lot you'd like to do, concerning the guards of this place….or perhaps freedom. Whatever you wish, I don't care. I've done my job here."

"What job!? Who are you!?" She could scream in ecstasy. She could talk again, without pain. She felt like she could leap up and run a mile. Indeed, she did jump to her feet, standing straight and facing him. He began to turn away. "Please!" she begged of him. "Who are you!?"

He stopped for a moment, looking around. "I…am Lucien Lachance. Speaker of the Dark Brotherhood…"

She gasped, taking a few steps back. The Dark Brotherhood… the merciless guild of cutthroats and assassins who relished on death and murder… This angel, who stood before her, her savior…he was one of them! Where fear of stuttering should have been, instead there came a laugh. Her laugh. She was laughing! How about that?

"Lucien," she whispered, relishing his name. "Lucien Lachance…" What a fun name to say. What a glorious name to have escape her lips. "You…killed him?" She pointed at Avantus's corpse. A mad grin split across her face. "That was…beautiful…"

He turned wholly towards her now, a smile now on his lips as well. She became breathless at his smile. It was _art_.

"Indeed?"

"Why did you save me?"

Lucien sniffed, still smiling. "A contract. On his head. A former prisoner of this place. Avantus brutalized many of the bastardly souls that passed through this prison. I suppose he never anticipated that one of them would have the gall to pray to the Night Mother on his behalf. His erotic murder is done, and thus is my job here. Enjoy your freedom… I won't lock the door." He began to walk away from her, but she desperately ran to him.

"Wait… I want to go with you!"

Lucien turned only once more, and barely at that. "Go? With me? How laughable." He stroked her cheek with his hand. "Red, dear. Red path leads to Lucien Lachance. See me then."

"Red path…what?"

But before she could get an answer out of him, the angel suddenly vanished. Where he was, he seemed enveloped and eaten by the very air around him. He faded into nothingness, dissolved into everything. She gasped, clawing forward, grabbing at the place where he had vanished…but he was nowhere. Only empty air. As she stood, shaking on the spot, wondering where he could have gone, she suddenly heard his voice. It sounded far away.

"Brutalize…" Just one word. One beautiful set of three syllables. She dropped to her knees, grinning, clawing at the floor. The firelight still burned happily in this cell. She turned to look at Avantus's body. Savage pleasure peaked within her, and she crawled like an animal towards him. Throwing her hand around the hilt of the knife that stuck into the wolf (that knife left behind by the angel), and she yanked it out of the wolf hard, slicing through its skin and fur so beautifully. A mad expression overtook her face as she stared the knife down. Then, she began to talk to it.

"Brutalize," she whispered, rubbing the flat end of the blade as if it were her own child. She closed her eyes in satisfaction, her chest heaving. "Mutilate." Her legs crossed tightly. "Yes… I could do that…follow the angel's words…" She rolled Avantus onto his back, through great effort against his heavy armor. His eyes stared up at her in disbelief, the large slit in his throat so…_gorgeous_. She prodded at the bloody wound with her fingers lightly. It felt… funny. Like _ha ha_ funny. She giggled, digging her fingers in more tightly.

"Ha ha!" She could do nothing but laugh. Her laughter echoed down the length of the hall. What few prisoners lay awake now, they all heard it… and were all terrified. There was utter madness in that laugh, utter loss of sense and reason in its notes. And with the laughter came a new sound. A slicing sound. A squirging sound. That nasty, slimy sound of mutilated flesh and tissue as she sawed, sawed, sawed.

First his neck. Then his lips. His nose, eyes, ears, they all flowered. After they were removed, Marie slowly cut up his face, severing it and marking it well with blood and boil. Her art piece must be left unrecognizable. Avantus reborn! The savage grin never left her face as she mutilated his, stabbing it ferociously, blood splattering the walls and her body as she cut, cut, stabbed, sliced, and ripped with fingers and knife alike. When she finished at last, he was left as nothing. Looked like nothing, _was_ nothing.

She stood up, all blooded and soiled. The knife of the angel spoke to her then.

_You know… he could only be number one. What limits would hold you back? _


	2. Chapter 2

Footsteps had never been more poetic. Pitter patter down the hall, take care not to fall, for if your face hits the stone, your senses and your brain be gone. Antoinetta Marie walked with a bounce to her step, an intent in every gesture. When she passed Kirk Banius's cell, she blew the child murderer a kiss. The dark blue Argonian lay on his cot staring ceilingward, and did not register her at all, lost in thought over the matter which had just taken place down the way. She carried Avantus's torch in hand, and illuminated his features. He looked wide-eyed and fearful. And this… this brought her happiness. She continued on the way, stopping next at Jervis Match's cell. Jervis, a convicted robber who had been in league with the fabled Thieves Guild, twiddled his thumbs nonchalantly, only giving her the slightest nod.

"Get going now, girly," the Breton said to her. "You want to be out of this place before the guards come to investigate." He sounded bored, without a care in the world. Marie gripped his cell bars tightly in her hand, breathing deeply.

"Maybe… I don't have to go alone," she said to him.

He considered her. "Eh?"

"Yeah… maybe, we _all_ deserve a chance at freedom, yes?"

Jervis nodded. "Gonna let us out, then?"

Marie grinned, holding up something else she had taken from Avantus. She jangled the keys loudly in hand. "Yes, I am. Today is a day of freedom. No man should suffer this place on this holy day." She shoved the key into his cell lock and turned. Jervis leapt to his feet, nodding.

"Shadow praise you, Marie." He bowed to her, and Marie shrugged, her eyes closed in satisfaction as she went to unlock Kirk's cell. Kirk the Argonian, oddly named as he was for his race, looked up when the door swung open. He noted the beautiful blonde woman who stood above him. Her hand reached out. Slowly, not knowing what to say or do, the Argonian took her hand as she hoisted him up. He did not let go, only gazing miraculously at her. Convicted of the savage murder and mutilation of no less than fifteen children beneath the age of five (and all on the same day, at the same birthday party, no less), the Argonian had been brutally treated by the guards for seven years now, starved half of that time, and cut at with knives on a weekly scale the other half. His body was decorated with countless cuts and slices, all reminders of how much the Imperials hated him. Of course, serving a life sentence in Cyrodil was as much as death sentence as anything could be. The Argonian was insane, to be sure, lacking remorse and reason. According to official testimony, his reason for the horrific massacre had become as infamous as the crime itself: _"Lordship Judge, this is my reason: I was simply bored. And those kids looked like they were having way too much fun. I got jealous… so I ripped the little bastards apart." _

"You're not going to serve anymore time in this hell-hole," Marie whispered to the Argonian sociopath. She kissed in scaly hand lightly with her lips, making the shocked expression upon the Argonian's face that much more pronounced. "You are free… to kill again, at your leisure." She smiled softly at him.

"You… you mean it?" he whispered.

Her eyes were cold. "Every single person in this damned country…deserves it." She said it so casually, as if it were the most obvious fact in the world. "We… we need murderers like you, out there, diminishing their numbers. Please, Kirk Banius… go and slaughter more children. For me." She placed her hand to her heart. "For me, your savior… your angel…"

"You're sick…twisted…" The Argonian's voice rasped with surprise. And then, a huge grin spread across his face, his sharp teeth glinting in the firelight. "I love it!"

Marie chuckled. "Be free, then." She turned on her heel and proceeded back down the hall, to unlock the other prisoners. One by one she set them free, each of them speechless at her sudden gesture, and the more she unlocked the doors… the more peace swelled with her heart. Bandits, murderers, rapists… they were all in here, with her… and being around them felt good. Setting them free upon Cyrodil _felt good_. Knowing that they would go to hurt more Imperials felt _good_. Her heart was filled with happiness. All of these days in torment and fear… the Imperials would feel her wrath before the End Days. These prisoners were her keys to that future, her weapons for vengeance.

The last prisoner she released was a Dunmer, named Fradis Rindlno. Fradis had never spoken to her in the entirety of her incarceration. The Dark Elf kept to himself, always silent, tucked away in a corner of the courtyard when they were allowed out. He would often whisper to himself when he thought no one was looking, urgently arguing about something in hushed tones. Not that this was surprising. Compared to Fradis, Kirk was a Divine. Fradis had gone beyond murder during his spree time. Murder had only been the _first_ part of his experiments. The souls of his victims had been collected from their corpses, and sealed away inside containers with the intention of seeing just how much torment an earthly moral could put a soul through. Fradis had attempted to replicate the Deadlands within the containers, based upon the Daedric realm ruled over by the dark prince Mehrunes Dagon. Theorizing that if the Deadlands could be replicated inside of the containers, and that the souls would endure the agonies of the fires within, the justice system could in turn punish criminals more effectively. Unfortunately for his victims, Fradis had indeed succeeded in creating a spell capable of making souls tangible and feel, and the twisted replications of the Deadlands that he had indeed summoned into the containers had put the souls through deathly agony. His murder spree had went beyond one-hundred during a period of three years, all of them ex-criminals and the families of those criminals whom he had deemed unworthy to enjoy freedom at their leisure. For the families, he had theorized that they supported the actions of the former criminals, and they had not disowned them, and thus they were equally guilty and deserving of punishment in his twisted eyes. While his studies had revolutionized a new way of looking at the capabilities of magic, the Chancellor of the Imperial Palace himself had authorized unlimited sentencing upon his head, casting him into the prison forever. Not that he had ever talked that much to anyone before the imprisonment. No one except Mehrunes Dagon. At his sentencing court, he had stood before a hundred witnesses and swore that Mehrunes Dagon not only spoke back to him, but had enabled him with magics to replicate the Deadlands. Apparently, Mehrunes Dagon would constantly whisper in his ears, giving him new incentives to murder and experiment.

Now Marie kneeled before this most unholy angel and loved him. He was perfect in every way, and she had not realized it until tonight. Indeed she had feared him when they had first brought her into this place, and she had kept her distance well from the Elf. Now, however, after meeting the angel Luchance… suddenly, Fradis was _beautiful_. She wanted to see him free. She wanted him to continue his experiments and send people screaming into the fires!

"Look at me, Fradis," she whispered softly. His back was turned to her, as he stared silently at the wall. He ignored her. Smiling, stepping forward even more, she placed her hand upon his shoulder. "I said, look at me, Fradis."

He cocked his head, his long, greasy black hair swaying in an oily fashion. He said nothing. Marie bent down and held him against her, hugging and holding him as if he were a child of her very own. She tenderly stroked his head.

"Beloved, don't be afraid," she whispered to him. "For I will see you delivered from this Hell. There are so many people, aren't there… so many souls to send into Hell. Burn them all, right? We can burn them all…"

He cocked his eyes upward at her, leering. "Every criminal deserves to burn," he whispered, his eyes bulging madly.

Marie shook her head. "Not all of them, love…. You see, it's not criminals that deserve to burn. You had it half right. We who are opposed by this damnable Empire… we are the _victims_. You went through it, became one yourself… no, no, no, no… not us! Not _us_! _Them_! The guards who beat you senselessly at night, the ones who threw hot grease on your back as you showered… Do you remember how painful it was? I was watching you from my cell window. How it _burned_ you! How agonous was it? Do _they_ not deserve to burn…?"

Fradis nodded. "Of course they do!" he spat.

Marie popped her neck loudly. "Then, love…" Her hand gently stroked his chest. He looked very uncomfortable. "_Do. It."_ She placed the knife of Lucien Lachance in his hand, smiling. His mouth twitched uneasily, his hands shaking hard as he held the weapon, as it glinted singingly in the firelight. She stood up, jingling the keys loudly before him.

"Be free, Fradis. Be free with the rest of us. Come, children!" she called out, looking around at them all, a mad grin on her face. They all studied her with a mixture of emotions: fear, awe, lust and shock. Kirk was grinning. "Come, children, all, the guards have no idea we have freed ourselves. Come with me, and together, let us take back this land of Cyrodil. You all should spill the blood of your tormentors, and set out into the land to spill more blood! You are free! Take your places in this world again!"

"Hear, hear!" Kirk screamed, jumping up and down excitedly. Jervis shrugged. He walked past her silently, nodding only once at her as he passed. She smirked. Of course, Jervis would not be for that at all, would he. He was of the Thieves Guild, and from what rumor escalated around Cyrodil, they did not believe in murder. But the others who now surrounded her, they looked ravenous. Fradis came to her side. The knife was still shaking in hand.

"Cut, cut… I want to cut… slice, and slice…" His voice was a whisper, and he sounded fearful. His eyes were darting left and right. Mad. Marie rubbed his cheek with her thumb.

"I know, Fradis… that's why I release you. Give Mehdrunes Dagon what he is owed."

Fradis jittery nodded and began to move quickly for the staircase that would lead out of this place. Marie and the other prisoners followed in form, the keys still jangling in hand. Her heart had dark desires indeed. She wanted to see the guards in the night shift _murdered_. And these fine gentlemen seemed all too eager to oblige. She could feel Kirk's breath on the back of her neck.

"You didn't have to do this," he whispered in her ear.

Marie shook her head. "I didn't. But I did."

"Why spare us?"

"Because I mean what I say, Kirk… I want to see bloodshed." And she did mean it. Kirk realized this too, for his awestruck form enhanced. She spoke with venom in her words. She truly hated the Imperials for what they had done to her…

The stairs of stone were cold but ultimately satisfying underfoot. They were stairs to freedom. To escape. With each ascension, her heart increased by ten beats. The excitement in her was burst-worthy. She had _freed_ these children! When she was out of this place, she had little idea of what would happen next. Fleeing would be essential. With the guards of the night shift all dead, if they succeeded, she could steal away into the wilderness. A long bridge separated the prison from the main city, and a hill went down into a large ravine on their end. Lake Rumare surrounded them, and just beyond the lake… the rest of the world. She would steal north. North, her Aunt Adranna lived in a cottage east of Bruma, at the foot of Gnoll Mountain. This suited her fine. She loved the cold. The freezing snows would be a comfort to her indeed. As for her aunt… Aunt Adranna loved Marie to a fault. She had protested Marie's journey to find a home in the Imperial City. She had intently suggested to Marie that she live with her, in her cottage, and to stay away from the temptations of the City. Of course, Marie had been foolish, and she had not listened to her aunt's warning of the cruel guardsmen and the jittery criminals. She would return to her home there and seek forgiveness, and beg shelter of the woman. It had been six months since she had seen Adranna last. Six months with no contact. But at least in Bruma County, in its great wilderness, she would be safe from the law who would pursue her… until she was able to buy passage out of Cyrodil. From who and how, she did not know. But she knew one thing: Jehaana awaited her. Once she secured passage out of Cyrodil, she would head northwest, cutting through Skyrim on a long journey to High Rock, where she would return to her native city of Jehaana. In Jehaana, she had no friends. No family. Nothing there at all. That was why it was perfect for her.

_In the meantime… I want to see him again. The angel, Luchance… I want to see him before I leave. _She could not get the man's face out of her head. The darkness in him… it was so gratifying. The way he had slit Avantus's throat… pure lust-worthy. What had that been, what he had said? To find him… follow the Red Path? Or something like that? She wondered what that path could be. Was it a secret? He had claimed before her to be a Speaker (whatever that was) of the Dark Brotherhood. The Dark Brotherhood…

The Dark Brotherhood had never haunted her thoughts before. Always it had been a boogeyman story to her. Something more than myth but still less than obvious truth. A family of murderers, who killed for both profit and joy… And her angel was a son of that family! So… was he suggesting that the Dark Brotherhood was the key to seeing him again? Red Path sounds a lot like bloody path… The rumors of Cyrodil told her one thing: joining the Dark Brotherhood was possible only through one form of means: murder. Was this not right? Was murder the…answer?

She had never seen herself as capable of murder. Indeed, the mutilation of Avantus's corpse had been pure ecstasy, but… could she have actually brought herself to _make_ him a corpse? To be the one to slit his throat? Could she ever take an innocent life, ever summon the courage to murder someone with her own hands? She had no problem sending these notorious men surrounding her to slaughter the guards of this prison, or indeed the denizens of this Hell-hole of a country… but she herself did not know if she could actually be the one to sink the knife in.

At the door atop the great flight of stairs, she placed the key into the lock and turned. It made the most satisfying click she had ever heard, and her heart leapt with joy.

"Kill them all," she cried out excitedly, kicking the door wide open. A small office awaited on the other side, with only a desk and a few chests sitting by the wall. Two small staircases led down to the two sides of the prison where the cells were held. A single guard sat at the desk now, but when the door burst open, the gray armored fool turned in his seat, a shocked expression upon his face.

"What in the-"

"Stab! STAB! STAB! CUT! CUT!" Fradis ran forward and leapt wholly upon the man, the two of them crashing into a heap upon the floor as the guard screamed. Marie elapsed into a fit of hysterical laughter, her hands shaking madly, positively jumping on the balls of her feet as she watched the two men struggling. All around her, her fellow prisoners were whooping loudly, egging Fradis on. They saw the knife rise and fall, rise and fall. Saw the splatters of blood. They flecked the walls, and they flecked the spectators. Some of the blood went right into Marie's open, cheering mouth. She paid it no mind at all. She did not even notice.

Fradis jumped up after a minute, his face splattered with red. The guard's face was mutilated beyond comprehension. The body did not look like it belonged to anything but a sliced up, bloody, jumbled mess of hanging tissue and pools of red.

"Good man, Fradis," Kirk complimented the Dark Elf. The Dark Elf did not respond. He simply walked away, heading right for the staircase that led into the other side of the prison. "Fradis?"

"Fradis, love, the exit is here," Marie called out, pointing at the exit door, but the mad Dunmer was muttering to himself.

"Gotta s-s-s-stab… c-cut and s-slice…" He was talking frantically, the knife trembling in hand. "Other p-prisoners… gonna…cut them up…" They saw that he had a set of keys in one hand. Keys he had fished off of the murdered guard's corpse. They all watched in silence as he unlocked the door to the other cells and vanished behind it, still muttering madly.

"Let's go!" Marie cried out. She would leave Fradis behind. It was his choice and his right if he desired to stay behind and kill the other prisoners. She had no interest in freeing them. She had only gotten to know those on the East Wing of the prison. Let Fradis cut them up… yes, let him…

A set of swords and maces hung upon the wall behind the desk. Emergency weapons more like. Kirk and the others each took one in hand, except Marie and Jervis. Marie took nothing, because she did not know how to effectively use any of those weapons in combat. She would rely purely on stealth, and use these men as distractions for the guards while she made off through the prison gate. Jervis took no weapon either, instead choosing to walk from them in silence, his eyes closed in apparent meditation. He pushed open the great door leading out of the prison, and walked out into the early morning dark. They all stared after the man, all of them perplexed.

"He's an odd one… and he's going to get himself killed!" Kirk snapped viciously, fingering the sword in his hand. It was a short-sword, but sharpened well.

Marie nodded. _He may need our help…_ She promptly followed after Jervis without a word, and her in-debted followed at once. The lot of them burst through the doors, and spilled out into the courtyard, Kirk yelling an Argonian war shout as he leapt onto the stone porch of the prison tower.

_"Nyech!" _he slithered, the sword swinging through the air as he readied himself. Jervis was standing on the edge of the small step-way leading down into the main courtyard of the prison entrance, his head bowed, positively still. Now, the few guards stationed outside were noticing the odd event. There were only three of them patrolling tonight, and two of them were running over from the doors, brandishing swords in hands, calling out loudly, "Prisoners escaping! Prisoners escaping!"

Kirk and his fellow prisoners marched into battle, six of them crashing down around the two guards and quickly overwhelming them. Marie stood beside Jervis and watched the briefest of fights. One of the guards, the one in front, swung his sword at the head of Montus Brisco, a Breton and convicted rapist, but Brisco parried against the man's strike with the spiked mace he held in hand, and Kirk followed the parry up with a stab forward. The sword went through the guard's helmet, slicing right through his face. The end of Kirk's sword stabbed through the back of the man's head. Meanwhile, Barron Rayvon, a Redguard who had been convicted of theft, leapt unarmed upon the guard who had come up behind the first. He was a large man, Rayvon, and easily overpowered the second guard, pinning the helpess man down as the prisoners swarmed over him, stabbing him repeatedly and bludgeoning him on the head with their maces.

As the prisoners murdered the two unfortunate men, the third guard who patrolled outside saw all of this occurring from the distant door of the barracks, and promptly threw himself inside, slamming the door behind him. Marie chuckled.

"Come on, Jervis," she begged of the thief, who still stood stock still and silent. She began to take to the steps, running as fast as she could towards the great doors that led out into the city isle. She threw all her weight against the massive wood and iron door, pushing it forward with as much strength as she could manage. The other prisoners, whooping gleefully and spitting upon the corpses of their victims, were now running to join her. Together they all managed to push the door wide open, the great gate swinging forward into the wilderness and the bridge beyond. The great city gates of the Imperial City loomed in the distance across a stone bridge. Marie, however, ran rightward, taking to a sloping hill that led down into a ravine beneath the bridge, the grass feeling heavenly under foot. She felt so much joy rushing through her veins, so much ecstasy slithering in her blood. She was a child upon this dew-stained grass, running away from big bullies and laughing because the great lumps could do little to catch up to her. She could hear the other prisoners celebrating loudly, all of them running their own ways, into the cold morning. Her hair whipped about her as she ran, ran, ran, right down into the great Lake Rumare itself. The waters!

Oh, the blessed waters! So _cold_! So _soothing_! It was breath itself, it was! To feel it was joy, to know it was really there was mad to comprehend after such a horrible journey through the Imperial Prison, but now it was _real_. It meant everything to surround her, everything to be there, to exist! Existing was all that mattered right now! The sounds of crickets sang in every directions, frogs letting out their nighty choir. Ripples of water surrounded her as fish swam to and fro about her legs. She cared not even for the possibility of slaughterfish. Marie threw herself face forward into the waters, drinking deeply of the lake, submerging herself completely. The silence and solitude of the water depths were so gratifying. She closed her eyes, allowing her body to go adrift through the water with a grace she did not even realize she still possessed. Not after the prison. She had thought it lost. She had thought all was lost…

_But he came for me! Lucien… the death angel… he destroyed the Devil and its Pup, brought me out into this experience, into this land… I love him so._ She smiled to herself as her hair floated about her face. _I love him so, love him so, love him so… _She surfaced, taking in the breath of life. The smell of the water was so pure, its coldness tender and loving. She did not even cast a single glance at the Imperial City or its filthy prison as she began to swim northward, intent on crossing the river and reaching the county of Bruma before sunrise. Sunrise was coming in a few hours, and she had to be amongst the snowy plains by the time it came. The guards must never get wind of where she was heading. They would contact Bruma and have watchmen on the roads… but they would never go as far as Gnoll Mountains was from the town. So she must hurry! A trip to auntie's house!

As Antoinetta Marie swam with all haste and obsession, she paid only attention towards the distant shore that led northward. She did not notice the dark shadow of an Argonian, swimming beneath the water, slowly tailing her from behind…


End file.
